


'Til Rest Is Found

by gloriouscacophony



Category: Supernatural, The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Federal Agents, Child Death, Crossover, Familial Abuse, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ghosts, Human Castiel, Kidnapping, Unresolved Emotional Tension, vengeful spirit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouscacophony/pseuds/gloriouscacophony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The X Files/Supernatural crossover:</p><p>When a little girl is brutally maimed and murdered, Federal Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder are sent to learn the truth and find her killer. But they're surprised to find two agents already working the case: Sam and Dean Winchester, hunters of the supernatural. The brothers reveal that the girl's killer may be a vengeful spirit along the lines of the myth of Kuchisake-onna, the Slit-Faced Woman. The four, along with former-angel-turned-human Castiel, seek to find out what the spirit wants and how to stop her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

 

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

When the bell rings at the end of the day, the school parking lot is alive with activity. Children run everywhere, talking and yelling as teachers and parents corral them to buses and cars. The sky is darkening already, the late November air crisp and cold. Runny noses are wiped with tissues or hands, scarves and hats are pulled tight, especially those of the children who live nearby and walk home in small groups.

Kimmy Tyler’s group is smaller thanks to a bout of colds in the third grade classrooms. Todd Whitmore and Jaleel Stevens are the only other children in their group today; three others are home in bed recovering. Their attendant double checks to make sure coats and backpacks are zipped and sends them off.

Jaleel’s house is only half a block away. He waves back to Kimmy and Todd as he bounds up the slushy sidewalk to the porch, where his mother waits rubbing her arms against the cold.

At the next intersection, crossing guards stop traffic to allow Todd to cross to the left, and Kimmy waves to him and offers a shy smile to the guard before turning right and continuing down the cracked sidewalk.

She toddles on, movements restricted by snow pants and a bulky jacket. She’s watching the ground, skipping around puddles, when she collides with someone.

The woman is tall and pale, with black hair that tangles around her in the slight breeze. Her face is mostly hidden by a stained scarf, but her eyes stare down at Kimmy, shining in the dull light from the street lamps.

“Oh, sorry!” Kimmy stops, steps away, but the woman reaches out a hand to cup her face.

“So pretty.” Her rasping voice is muffled by the scarf.

“Um, my mom’s waiting for me.” She tries to pull away, but the woman grabs her wrist. Not enough to threaten, just enough to keep her there.

“Wait…I have a question.”

“Are you lost?” She’s seen her mom give people in cars directions before, pointing them to the school or the mall or the park.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

The uncomfortable, nervous feeling returns. “I…I don’t know…I…”

The woman leans down and slowly tugs the scarf away, revealing the rest of her face. “How about now?”

Kimmy’s scream, high and thin, is swallowed by the dark.

 

 

 

Margaret Tyler hums quietly as she flips a grilled cheese sandwich. Kimmy should be home soon, and then there’s the PTA meeting and Matt still needs a ride to his dishwashing job…she checks her watch and frowns.

There’s a thud from directly overhead, and Margaret startles. “Kimmy? Are you home?”

She turns off the stove and plates the grilled cheese. “Kimmy?”

When there’s still no reply, she heads upstairs. The door to her daughter’s room is cracked open, but there’s no noise from inside. Margaret’s heart starts to pound, some motherly instinct ringing alarm bells as she pads down the hallway.

“Kimmy, are you—”

Kimmy can’t hear her mother’s cry.  
 


	2. Chapter 1

Federal Agent Dana Scully has seen a lot of strange things in the office she shares with Agent Fox Mulder, the FBI’s least wanted as he calls himself. Alien artifacts being the most common, not to mention the numerous unlabeled VHS tapes and DVDs that make up his extensive pornography collection. She’s learned not to play unmarked media unless she wants an eyeful of women with breasts far too large and perky to be real.

This is the first time she’s opened the door to their office and found Mulder hiding out under his desk.

“Mulder, are you going to come out of there and explain or do you plan to hide from Director Skinner for the rest of the week?”

Mulder peeks out, scanning his sight line for irate bald men. “Guess the coast is clear.” He stands and stretches. “I think my leg is asleep.”

“You’re going to have to talk to him sooner or later, you know.”

“And if it’s later rather than sooner, all the better.” Mulder plops down into his chair and props his feet up on his desk. Scully shoves them back to the floor with an eye roll that would be impressive if it wasn’t directed at him.

“I can’t do it, Scully. If I have to listen to one more hour, nay, one more minute of wiretap, I might do something desperate.”

“Well, in the interest of preventing desperation…” Scully dangles a folder from thumb and forefinger. Mulder’s eyes follow it as it swings side to side.

“Is that a case? Bless you.” He stands up and leans over the desk for the folder, but Scully pulls it back out of his reach.

“I have conditions.”

His fervor is almost like a dying man in a desert desperate for water. “Anything. I’ll even pet sit Queequeg.”

“The last time you pet sat for me, Queequeg peed on the couch and you ate all my Pringles.”

Mulder comes around the desk and falls to his knees, raising his clasped hands. “Anything!”

Scully watches him grovel for a few more minutes. “First, I get to drive. Second, aliens are not to be mentioned unless, by some miracle, aliens may in fact _plausibly_ be involved.”

“But—”

“No buts. Take it or leave it.”

“Am I allowed to mention other supernatural or otherworldly possibilities?”

Scully finally releases the file to his grabbing hands. “Would I have bribed who I had to bribe to get you this case and stop your whining if I didn’t think the supernatural or otherworldly might be a plausibly solution?”

Mulder skims the paperwork. “You spoil me, Scully.”

“You can thank Agent Clark, by the way.”

“Clark? Wait, that guy on the third floor who’s always staring at you with that creepy grimace?”

“It’s called smiling, Mulder.”

“What did you have to give him in exchange, your phone number?”

Scully suddenly looks very busy with a stack of papers.

“You didn’t.”

“We have a date next Friday.”

“I take it back, Scully, you’re a saint.”

“He’s not that bad, Mulder.”

“Not that bad? _Not that bad?_ ”

“Mulder, if you don’t pay more attention to the case documents, I may assume you’re no longer interested and return the file to Agent Clark’s desk.”

He shuffles back behind his desk, putting space between them in case he needs to run for the door. Once he’s satisfied that Scully has no plans to actually chase him, he flips to the included photos and freezes.

The victim is a young girl – nine years old, according to the file. She’s splayed across her bed, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. She’s been slashed, practically flayed, clothes and skin brutally torn by hundreds of sharp cuts over her entire body. The most prominent cuts, from the corners of her mouth almost up to her ears, were deep enough that blood poured from them to soak the sheets beside her head in twin rust-red puddles.

Any levity is gone from his face as he looks back up to Scully. The look she gives him tells him that she’s already read the file, already seen the photos. Seen the terror frozen on Kimmy Tyler’s face, the rigid set to tiny limbs that should still be running and moving and _alive_.

“Judging by the photos…” Scully hesitates, her voice quiet. “…she was still alive when her wounds were inflicted.”

“Where?”

“Dayton Springs, Ohio.”

They meet later at the rental pool, both somber and pensive. Mulder thinks of his sister, her disappearance still unsolved, as he signs the forms. Scully thinks of her daughter, Emily.

Neither of them says what both is thinking: let it be something supernatural or otherworldly. Let it be a ghost or a ghoul or an alien, as long as the monster that killed Kimmy Tyler isn’t a person, a human, hiding in plain sight during the day while he stalks and mutilates and murders in the convenient cover of night.

 

 

 

 

The trip to Ohio is a long one, and both agents are tired by the time they check into their hotel and head to the Tyler house. The chipped, faded paint looks out of place next to the healthy plants and flowers littering the porch. There are several police cars parked outside, in addition to a behemoth of a classic black car that makes Mulder whistle and stare until Scully tugs his sleeve and glares.

They expect to see local police grunts collecting samples, dusting for fingerprints, traipsing up and down the stairs to the bedroom where Kimmy was found.

What they didn’t expect was to see two other agents talking quietly in the corner. Scully can tell them, even without seeing their badges; the police are all in uniform, and these men – the taller of the two must have almost half a foot on Mulder – are dressed in casual suits, somber colors accented with striped ties.

Scully strides over to them, Mulder following. “Excuse me, Special Agent Dana Scully and this is my partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder.” She flips open her badge. “We weren’t aware there would be other agents working this case.”  
The shorter of the men pales, his green eyes going wide for a fraction of a moment, just long enough for Scully’s suspicions to be confirmed. Her gut feeling tells her something’s off, and in her years with Mulder, she’s learned that sometimes her gut is right.

“Special Agent Bonham, this is Special Agent Hetfield. We’re from the branch office.”

“Scully, I’m gonna go take a look upstairs. You all right here?” Mulder also has a gut feeling. These flash their badges quickly, but they aren’t men in black. No man in black would be caught dead in a striped tie. But Scully can hold her own, and whatever these men are up to, it’s best not to arouse suspicion until they know more, especially if this is his kind of case. The kind the government would just love to cover up.

The police grunts filter out when he enters, leaving him alone to examine the evidence. Nothing screams out X File to him here – the room is undisturbed except for the blood-soaked bedding – but Kimmy couldn’t have been dragged up here without her mother seeing or hearing. It’s as if something transported her here, brutally murdering the little girl and leaving her for her mother to find.

But the room isn’t telling him anything else, so he heads back downstairs. Scully is on her phone, her mouth set in a tense, grim line as she listens to whoever’s on the other end, and Agents Bonham and Hetfield are talking quietly in the kitchen. Scully finishes the call and hangs up with a disgusted sigh.

“Well, I was able to reach their supervisor. I’m still calling Director Skinner when we leave.” She speaks softly, sneaking a glance at the agents to make sure they aren’t overheard. “Did you find anything upstairs?”

“I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but hear me out, okay?” Scully looks as if she’s trying her best not to roll her eyes but gestures at him to continue. “You’ve seen the photos and read the mother’s report. There’s no way Kimmy could have been brought here and been killed without her mother knowing. Kimmy left school with her friends and her mother heard the noise from upstairs around the same time Kimmy would have been home, but Mrs. Tyler never left the house. There wasn’t any opportunity for anyone to hide away in Kimmy’s room, and the only path to the stairs would have taken the killer right by the room Mrs. Tyler was in.”

“So help me, Mulder, if you try to make this about aliens—”

“Not aliens, Scully. A vengeful spirit, some kind of manifestation of, of—”

“—Mulder,” Scully hisses, cutting him off with a slight tilt of her head towards the kitchen. The two agents are watching their argument, looking away quickly when they see Mulder and Scully staring back at them. “I think we should finish this conversation later.”  
They stick around to talk to Mrs. Tyler. Kimmy’s mother is little help, sobbing inconsolably and trying and failing to gather herself enough to answer Mulder’s gentle questions while Scully speaks to the forensic lead, arranging a time to see the body at the station morgue.

By the time they leave, the massive black car and Agents Bonham and Hetfield are nowhere to be seen.

Scully calls Skinner on the drive back to the hotel, who sounds as surprised to hear about the other agents as they were. She gives him what little information they have, names and descriptions, and an update on the case – failing to mention, of course, Mulder’s theory. The director barely puts up with their conclusions even when they have incontrovertible, solid evidence; she knows better by now than to share theories that are just speculation and Mulder’s imaginings. Even if Mulder is right most of the time.

At the hotel, Scully wins the coin toss for the shower and leaves Mulder busy on the laptop, already deep into research for his vengeful spirit theory. When it’s Mulder’s turn for the shower, she skims the websites he’s pulled up and flips through the case file, scanning for something substantial and jotting down a list of possible interviews on a hotel notepad.

A knock on the door, sharp and brisk, makes her pause in her notetaking and reach for her gun on the bedside table. A glance through the peephole shows the agents from earlier, now in plainclothes. “Mulder, get out here,” she hisses, quiet enough so the men on the other side of the door won’t hear.

He peeks out of the bathroom, clad only in a damp towel, but grabs his gun at her quickly whispered explanation. Another knock sounds, and she turns back to open the door.

As soon as the door opens, her gun is pointed right at the shorter man’s face.

“Whoa, lady!” His hands go up and his eyes widen. “We’re not here to rob you or anything!”

“Get inside.” The taller one – Agent Hetfield – puts his hands up and follows. She ushers them to the bed and they sit, glancing at each other then over to Mulder, who’s dripping water all over the carpet.

“Um, look, we can come back later—”

“Tell me who you are, or I’m arresting you.”

“I’m Sam,” the taller one starts, despite the other man’s warning glare. “This is my brother, Dean. We heard you talking at the crime scene, and— this is gonna sound crazy, but we think you’re right, about the vengeful spirit.”

So they had overheard, earlier. “You aren’t agents, are you?”

“Are you…paranormal investigators?” Mulder creeps closer, looking interested.

“Sort of. We’re hunters. Ghosts, wendigos, demons, all that fun stuff, it really exists, and we hunt it down and take it out.”

Mulder looks like Christmas has come early, and the glee on his face is freaking Sam and Dean out a bit.

“You…don’t really look all that surprised.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “He believes in aliens. It’s not that much of a stretch.”

Dean snorts. “Aliens, really?”

“Says the guy who hunts ghosts,” Mulder retorts.

“If we can get back on track,” Scully interrupts, glaring at the three men in the room like they’re recalcitrant children. “How did you find out about this case?”

“We’ve got contacts,” Dean says, but doesn’t explain further. “I’m sure you guys know this isn’t the first death like this, since you’re actually FBI.”

The silence that follows indicates otherwise, and Dean grins.

“Geez, our guys know more than the Feds? What a surprise!”

“Dean, shut up.” Sam nudges him and gets a shove back in return.

“Look, lady—”

“—Agent Scully—” she reminds him.

“—Agent Scully, we’ve got two other kids that died just like this, slashed to pieces with no way anyone human could have got them where they ended up without being caught. You need us, especially if we’re gonna get rid of this thing before anyone else dies.”

Two more children, ripped to pieces for their parents or friends or teachers to find. “And if there are more, what makes you think this isn’t the work of a serial killer?”

“When you’ve been in the business as long as we have, you know. We’ve got files, records. We aren’t trying to con you or, or scam you or anything. We just want to help,” Sam says.

The four stare at each other, waiting, until Scully breaks the silence. “Take out any weapons you have – slowly – and place them on the nightstand, then we’ll talk.”

Two guns, four knives, and several wooden stakes and spools of piano wire later, Sam and Dean are unarmed and Mulder and Scully are surprised and a bit jealous. Mulder takes the pile and moves it to the closet, then he and Scully holster their guns after a hushed conversation, mostly involving Mulder’s excited pleading and promises to remain cautious. Sam and Dean obviously know something, and they need to find out more about them and what they know about these murders.

“All right, tell us about this vengeful spirit.”

**Author's Note:**

> Cover stock: Ninamarja.devianart.com


End file.
